How to Start a Website or a Blog

Archiv für den Monat: Juni 2018

Running a WordPress website or a blog is exciting. The thrill of being able to share your content with your audience at ease is the driving factor in why WordPress powers over 30% of all the websites. A people’s platform, WordPress is a popular Content Management System (CMS) for new and experienced users alike.

WordPress however, does offer its fair share of issues that trouble its users. Some of these issues are generic and can be addressed with small amendments. Other complications with the system demand a technical learning curve to solve. This article highlights the common issues and how to solve them.

Issues with themes and plugins

Themes and plugins are essentially the structures that support WordPress‘ framework. Users often have to deal with issues related to them.

Theme issues:

Theme installation failed

Missing stylesheet

Sample data import errors

HomePage not similar to the demo etc.

The root cause of such theme related issues could be that something is missing in the zip folder or you could have simply missed uploading the root theme folder.

For sample data import errors, you can try any of these solutions:

Once you have activated the theme, make a check and ensure that your theme includes custom post types and taxonomies

If you fail to import media, you can open the sample data in a text editor and try and locate one of those files and test the link in your browser

Alternatively, you can get in touch with the theme developer and share your issues if you are unable to address them successfully.

Plugin issues:

Regularly updating and ensuring that you download plugins from reliable sources can reduce risk. However, some errors still creep in which can be dealt with in the following manner.

Some plugin updates go along with the latest update of your WordPress version. Make sure you don’t miss them.

Plugins can be complex to set up and require careful configuration. Make sure that you are meticulous with the plugin documentation and follow instructions.

Always upload your plugins to the right folder: wp-content/plugins

If everything else fails, get in touch with the Plugin developer to seek your answers.

Lost WordPress admin password

Losing your WordPress site’s login password can cause real issues.

If you can successfully retrieve it through the emailed link request – you are one of the lucky ones. A lot of WordPress admins never receive these emails in their inbox.

You can try resetting the email and password through the phpMyAdmin option. To do so, you will have to login to your cpanel, locate the phpMyAdmin and select the database option of your WordPress website.

Click on the wp_users table to enter a new username and password

Move to ‘Functions‘ and click the MD5 option as it highly recommended

Save the changes and you will be able to access your site’s admin dashboard.

Another way around this is to edit your theme’s functions.php file. Make the following additions and save the file to upload it. You can login to the dashboard and remove the code from the file after yet another upload.

wp_set_password(‘DesiredNewPassword‘,1);

A hacked WordPress site

A hacked WordPress website is unfortunately a common issue. It can only be dealt with by the implementation of a robust website monitoring security system and with a WordPress security plugin in place. You can also try hiding your site’s login page or integrate 2-factor authentication to make sure that you have ample time to act before your website is attacked.

The white screen of death

The most common WordPress error is the ‘white screen of death‘. To make sure that things get back to the normal, you can try checking if your existing theme or the installed plugins are facing some compatibility issues. This method however could result in a lengthy process and requires you to deactivate all the plugins and reactivate them one by one to figure out the one that has been causing the trouble.

If you have been locked out of your dashboard, you can go the FTP way.

The other way of fixing your site’s white screen of death error is by increasing the PHP memory limit via FTP where you will be prompted to edit your wp-config.php. All you need to do is add the following code snippet at the bottom of the wp-config.php file

define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT‘, ‘256M‘ );

Dealing with spam

Spam is a recurrent issue faced by many new WordPress site owners.

The only way to deal with spam is by downloading and installing anti-spam plugins such as the Akismet plugin. You should also make sure that you cut out user-generated spam on your site’s group or forums to keep the situation under control. Eliminating spam is generally a great way to speed up your WordPress site.

Error 404

One of the most irritating WordPress errors is where the site posts return a 404 Error when your website is unable to locate a page that you are trying to access. To fix WordPress posts returning 404 error, you can generate a new .htaccess file by navigating to Settings > Permalinks. Just remember to click on save changes.

Error establishing a database connection

If your website has been hacked or if there is an issue with your site’s web host provider, your website might run a message mentioning an error establishing a database connection.

To fix the issue, you can check your wp-config.php file to see if any of the information such as the username, database name, password, and host are all correct and not missing.

If the error continues, you can try repairing the error by adding the following line to initiate the repair of the database. Just be sure that this code is removed from the wp-config file to avoid public access.

define (‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR‘, true);.”

However, if everything is intact and the error prevails, you can seek assistance from your host provider regarding the error as it might be taking place due to issues at their end.

Conclusion

There are unfortunately another hundred WordPress errors that demand a space in this article, but we have captured the most common ones that can be dealt with easy tweaks. These errors occur to make sure that all your website elements are in their right places before it’s too late to make a change and your website might go missing, entirely.

Pawan Sahu is a digital marketer and passionate blogger at MarkupTrend.

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By now the advantages of blogging are undoubtedly well-established. Statistics show that:

Businesses that blog get 67 % more leads than businesses that do not

Marketers that prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to get a positive ROI compared to marketers that don’t

Companies that blog get 97 % more links compared to companies that do not blog

Websites with a blog are likely to have 434 % more indexed pages.

However, if you don’t have an SEO strategy for your blog, you are most certainly missing out. Research shows that SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, compared to a 1.7% close rate through outbound means.

In other words, it is not enough to blog. You need to make sure your blog ranks in the search engines. The following basic tips will help you optimize your blog for search engines:

Employ the use of breadcrumbs

Take a look at the screenshot below — from an article

You’ll notice the section underlined in red? That’s breadcrumbs.

You can also see this implemented on all Search Engine Watch articles, including this one you are reading.

Using breadcrumbs has two main advantages:

It helps Google and other search engines understand the structure of your blog. Using clickable paths, it makes it easy for search engines to see how your blog is structured. It also helps your blog’s internal linking — making it almost impossible for content on your blog to be undiscoverable by search engines.

It improves the user experience of your blog. It makes it easy to navigate sections of your blog without necessarily having to go back or close the browser tab. This increases time spent on site and reduces bounce rate, and good user experience will help your SEO.

Write longer and topically relevant content

Any article discussing basic blog SEO tips that doesn’t talk about content is incomplete. While Google has maintained a level of secrecy about factors it uses to rank websites, it has never shied away from emphasizing the importance of content. In fact, according to Google Search Quality Senior Strategist Andrey Lipattsev, content, links, and rankbrain are the three most important search ranking factors.

The main question, however, is this: what gives a blog post an advantage over others in the search engines. While Google has been very vague, SEO experts have some data based on analysis:

Topically-relevant content has been found to rank better. Making a blog post focus on one topic and discussing it in-depth will yield better results than having it discuss two or more unrelated topics.

Make your blog posts visually appealing

Taking the extra time required to add relevant, properly-tagged images to your blog post can seem frustrating, but it will be well worth it. It’s one of the easiest, most basic things you can do to help your content rank better.

According to Backlinko’s analysis of over one million articles, blog posts that contain at least one image significantly outperformed content without any images. That said, it doesn’t seem to matter much whether a piece of content has one or ten images: at the very least, make sure to include an image in all of your blog posts.

Internal linking

Links are undoubtedly one of the most important search engine ranking factors. In fact, the impact links play on search engine rankings is so significant that Backlinko’s research found that links influence the rankings of any content piece more than anything else.

However, a lot of attention is often paid to external links to the detriment of internal links. In a case study, Ninja Outreach explained that they were able to boost their search traffic by 40% simply by working on their internal linking.

Here are some tips:

Use descriptive anchor texts when linking internally

Moderate the number of links on your page — while internal linking is good, there’s no point having too much on one page.

Occasionally review old content pieces to ensure they link to other content pieces.

Improve your blog’s permalink structure

Depending on the CMS you are using for your blog, you’re likely to be stuck with an SEO-unfriendly permalink structure. Permalinks are the web address used to link to your content.

For example, if you own the blog: howtoteachadog.com and publish an article titled “How To Teach a Dog to Catch,” the resulting URL structure could be this:

howtoteachadog.com/?p=100

Or this:

howtoteachadog.com/how-to-teach-a-dog-to-catch

In most cases many blogs are stuck with the first version — which gives no indication of what the article is about. The second structure, on the other hand, is more descriptive and will be more effective from an SEO perspective.

If you use WordPress, this article will show you how to change your blog permalink structure. If you use other CMSs, they most likely have an official tutorial on how to do this.

Install basic SEO plugins

Plugins can give you a kind of superpower when it comes to your blog SEO. While you want to be careful with what plugins you install (in order to avoid clunking your site and making to slower), installing and using the following basic SEO plugins will give you an edge:

All in One SEO/Yoast SEO plugin: this allows you to review each of your posts based on a number of factors until it is “perfect” from an SEO perspective.

The WP Smush.it plugin: site speed is one of the ranking factors Google and other search engines use, and images are often a major culprit when it comes to site loading times. This plugin will compress your images and as a result boost your site speed and helping your SEO.

Get quality external links

This is as basic as it gets. Google admits that links are one of the top three ranking factors it uses when ranking websites. Effective blog SEO is not possible without external links.

Here are some ideas to help you get backlinks to your blog:

Identify relevant and authoritative publications and become guest authors for them. These publications will let you have a bio link and sometimes an in-content link to your blog posts. If relevant, these links can positively impact your blog SEO.

Get relevant industry blogs and publications to feature you — it could be in the form of an interview, a quote, or as part of an expert roundup.

Develop an outreach strategy aimed at getting relevant blogs to link to content on your blog.

There is a common misconception that SEO simply involves link building and including relevant keywords in content. While these are two important strategies, search engines consider a lot more than this when ranking websites.

Elements of user experience (UX) have been rolled into SEO practices. Is your site fast, secure and mobile-friendly? Do you have quality content that engages users and encourages them to stay on your website? Is your site quick to load and easy to navigate?

These are all elements that are considered by Google and other search engines when determining how to rank your website. With that in mind, read on to discover more about how UX fits into search engine optimization.

Why UX is important for SEO

Google has changed considerably over the years. The search engine giant constantly updates its algorithms to ensure users are provided with the best possible results. Each and every update that Google has made has been geared towards providing more user-focused and user-friendly results. We have seen changes to SERPs, like knowledge panel and rich snippets, and algorithm updates that have shown just how critical UX has become to Google. You only need to look at RankBrain to see that this is the case.

The introduction of RankBrain

RankBrain was introduced in 2015, and it was considered the third most significant factor in determining the SEO value of your website, only falling below links and content. RankBrain is driven by behavior metrics, including pages per session, bounce rate, dwell time, and organic CTR. Essentially, these metrics inform the search engine as to whether users enjoy their experience on your website.

After all, if a user visits your website again and again, spends a good chunk of time on it, and moves through the website with ease, it tells Google that you provide a good UX, and as a consequence, your ranking will improve. On the flip side, if someone leaves your website as soon as they enter it, returning back to the search results, it indicates that they did not find relevant information, and this can cause a drop in your ranking.

UX and SEO share common goals

UX also fits into SEO because they both share common goals. If you have been following SEO over the past few years, you will know that it has moved away from solely ranking for search terms. Now, it seeks to provide searchers with information that answers their queries. This is where UX and SEO start to interact. Both share the goal of helping users to complete their tasks by providing them with relevant information. SEO will lead a person to the content they need, and the UX answers their queries once a user ends up on the webpage.

Important SEO practices that influence UX

It is important to understand the common SEO and content practices that influence UX:

Both image tags and headings are critical. Image tags provide details when the images do not load, ensuring the user receives a similar UX irrespective of whether there is a picture or not. Headers help structure page content and improve page readability.

Creating page copy over 600 words is important to ensure it is in-depth and answers user questions.

Page speed also plays a vital role. No one wants to wait two seconds for a page to load. The Internet is supposed to be about convenience. How often have you had to wait for a page to load and you have ended up hitting the refresh button several times in frustration?

How to get the UX right

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding regarding the importance of UX in terms of search engine optimization. So, where should you begin in terms of improving your website’s UX so that it has a positive impact on your ranking?

Align your UX and SEO strategies – The first thing you need to do is make sure both strategies are integrated, rather than working in separate lanes. After all, one of the main objectives of your website should be to generate more leads and conversions. Both UX and SEO play a critical part in achieving this goal, but they need to work together if you are to have success.

Focus on designs that fit SEO principles – This includes providing focused product names and descriptions, creating a clear navigation path, optimising menu names and functionalities, maximizing H1 and H2 titles, and creating content that resonates with both visitors and search engines.

Invest in responsive web design – There is no excuse for having a website that is not optimized for use across all platforms in 2018. It is projected that by 2020 there will be 2.87 billion smartphone users. Just think of how many potential customers you are missing out on by failing to optimise your website. Not only this, but your search engine ranking will be suffering too. If someone enters your website via mobile phone and it is difficult to read, some of the buttons don’t work, and/or it is slow to load, you will never be able to reach one of the top spots on Google.

Simplify navigation – Website navigation is a key factor when it comes to UX and consequently your search engine ranking. Your homepage should feature clear and easy navigation. Users should be able to use your website intuitively – they shouldn’t have to think about their next step. One effective method for helping Google to understand and index your pages is including a sitemap on your website.

Focus on quality – Navigation is not the only factor that Google considers when determining whether your website is of a high quality or not. Other factors you need to work on include page layout, content relevance, content originality, internal link structure, and page speed.

When it comes to ranking your website on the search engine result pages, there is no denying that UX is one of the most critical factors. If you want to increase your online visibility and ultimately boost your conversion rate, you need to align your UX and SEO strategy.

Use the advice that has been provided as a starting point, but make sure you continue to test your website and make improvements. After all, if you remain stagnant, you will only get left behind.